Merav Tal-Or, an Israeli self-taught artist, photographer, poet and performer.
Explores the relationships with the body and the body's relationships with the world,
Also deals with body image, self-shame, authentic expression, emotional exposure, sexual perceptions, and freedom from social conventions.
About
בנוסף לצילום העצמי, אני עוסקת בצילום אובייקטים שונים, ובצילום בז'אנרים נוספים, כגון פיינטוגרפיה (צילום-ציור) וצילום-נגטיב.
מעבר לכך, אני עוסקת במגוון מדיות: כתיבת שירה, פרפורמנס, וידאו ארט ועוד.
גם כאן לעתים קרובות אגע בפצעי נפש עמוקים, כמו גם במיניות הלא מדוברת - לעתים מתוך רצינות תהומית, ולעתים מתוך גיחוך.
My life is a deep journey into the soul - and to what is beyond it.
Common concepts relating to the body, religious education, and violence in my early years have left scars in me - and led me to self-shame, shying away from my body, and to eating disorders.
I also experienced distress due to a rich and explosive inner world, which ran into social and internal walls.
A few years ago I started photographing myself.
The photos are taken by a mobile phone.
I tend to show all that we have learned to hide, that is perceived as dirty, not pretty.
Despite the great shame and concealment to which I am accustomed - and perhaps precisely because of it - I feel the urge to examine this body closely, and there is some primal urge to faithfully present the body as it is.
Moreover, arises the need to direct the spotlight specifically on the embarrassing parts.
Sometimes exaggerating the rejection, sometimes showing it ridiculously, sometimes in a playful way, and sometimes finding the beauty and healing power in it.
Through photography I get to know the beauty in 'ugliness', and the perfect in 'imperfect'.
I knead the body, play with it, create and recast it, discover unknown possibilities in it, and make new uses of it.